Chinese leaders hold "heart-to-heart" talks with Japanese prime minister

Fukuda said Japan would "very earnestly" reflect on the agonizing part of history and continue to follow the path of peaceful development so as to establish "forward-looking China-Japan relations". The two nations had a long-time disagreement on wartime history.

Wen and Fukuda also exchanged views on resources development in the East China Sea and the Taiwan issue.

Shi Yinhong, a professor with the Institute of International Relations under Beijing's Renmin University of China, pointed out that Japan no longer "assumed a dodgy attitude" over the Taiwan issue. It made it clear that Japan would give no support to the claims of "one China, one Taiwan", "Taiwan independence" or Taiwan authorities' attempts to join the United Nations and to seek UN membership through "referendum".

Shi considered it as "significant fruit" of the Chinese diplomacy towards Japan that "created favorable conditions" to continuously improve and develop the Sino-Japanese relations.

The professor believed the East China Sea issue was "very complicated" and the problem would not be solved "in one day" as there were differences in the stands of the two parties.

"It needs the two to conduct frequent, sincere, careful and patient negotiations," Shi said.

During their talks, Wen and Fukuda also touched upon the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Thursday. Both expressed strong opposition against terrorist activities.

Wen also invited Fukuda, a former university athlete, to play baseball player. During Wen's "ice-thawing" trip to Japan in April, the premier played baseball with Japanese college students. The baseball invitation unveiled at Friday's talks, set the dialogue tone as "easy and pleasant".

Xu Dunxin, former Chinese ambassador to Japan, attended the following luncheon hosted by Wen. "The joyous atmosphere at lunch shows that the two parties are satisfied with the meeting and are confident of the future of the bilateral relations," he said.

Xu said Friday's dialogue pointed to a new direction for the Sino-Japanese relations and promised to strengthen joint efforts to resolve hard issues that were not able to produce major achievement soon.

"All these fruits are hard-won and gratify the two parties," Xu said.

After the talks, the two witnessed the signing of three cooperation documents in fields of youth exchanges, technical cooperation on climate change, and new joint research on magnetic-fusion energy.

Speaking to college students, Fukuda said his name, which means "happiness" in the Chinese language, indicated, "happiness has come".

While meeting with Fukuda, President Hu said a sound China-Japan relations were "shared wishes" of the two nations and "shared responsibilities and missions" of the leaders of the two countries. Hu called for appropriately settling major sensitive issues.

The two countries also agreed that Hu would visit Japan next year "in a cherry blossom spring". It would be the first visit by a Chinese president after 10 years.

During Fukuda's four-day tour, he would also visit an economic development zone in Tianjin on Saturday and the hometown of Confucius in Qufu, Shandong Province, on Sunday before flying back to Japan.

Editor:Zhang Ning